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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible c***... me. - Brick Top, Snatch.

At the weekend I was flying along merrily when I had to quickly dock up due to my Eve Nemesis. Thankfully I wasn't in a fleet or had anyone relying on me this time. It's always the same. As soon as they are on the scene, I have to run to the nearest station and dock up or even sometimes warp to a safe-spot and log off in space. After this I usually go AFK for at least a couple of hours. I think the shortest time I have docked up for my Eve Nemesis is around 45 minutes but more often than not, its well over an hour.

So what is my Eve Nemesis?

Is it a character?
No. But if it was, Quake590 would rank fairly high. I just cannot kill that bloke. He roams around Black Rise/Tama way usually in a Hawk and is a bloody tough nut to crack. Very good player, not an asshat and happy to chat in local, always gives a GF, but still, a guy I'd REALLY like to kill! Most of the time I avoid him, I've tried several times to defeat him and I always end up in my pod! But he is not my "Eve Nemesis".

=

Is it a ship?
No. But if it was it would probably be one of the Amarr neuters. I always struggle against specialist neuting ships. Cap warfare is king in Eve. Without cap your tank is usually buggered, your eWar useless, your offensive powers drastically weakened. I do really hate neuting ships that suck your cap dry! But they are not my "Eve Nemesis".

=

Is it a corp or alliance?
No. And I cannot think of a corp or alliance I'd refer to as a nemisis. Pretty much all the corps or alliances that have given me and my corpies a good kicking, we've kicked back. We've smashed a PL titan. We've have ganked a Snuffbox T3 camp. We've..... hang on. Not sure we've actually ever come out on top against Rooks and Kings? Got a feeling we did win a fight against them..... once..... a long time ago. May be it would be them if it was a corp/alliance? But in the end, they are not my "Eve Nemesis".

So what is my Eve Nemesis?
Well, my Eve nemesis is in fact nothing in-game. It is in fact, a pair of shoes. And I will point out now, no, they are not my shoes, they belong to the wife! It is these shoes here......

These shoes have never left the house. The wife saves them for when she wants to mount a full-frontal assault on my Eve Online time. I'll be happily playing away when she appears by the computer room and stands in the doorway. Those shoes will always be accompanied by black lace top stockings and some form of racy lingerie. The question is always the same and is always spoken in the same tone. I say spoken, its more 'purred' than spoken.

"Are you busy?"

So, if you see me suddenly peel away from the fleet, warp to a station and dock up, may be the shoes have got me and my wife is playing the age old trap!

Sunday, July 29, 2012

In his recent "That's just the way it is" post on Jester's Trek, blogger Ripard Teg posits that the established EVE player-base has come to accept many of EVE's design idiosyncrasies, rarely questioning their purpose or benefit. Conversely, he also suggests that new players might not be so forgiving of these "quirks". In an interview with Gamasutra, Senior Producer CCP Unifex describes EVE Online's developers as "relatively hands-off janitors of the virtual world", underlining that he has only four content developers but "a lot" of programmers and engineers.

Has a culture developed where CCP has started to take player effort for granted - expecting the "social engine" to fulfil tasks that might otherwise be CCP's responsibility? Or should this culture be embraced as part of "emergent gameplay" with these quirks accepted as the catalyst for interaction?

"You know what really grinds my gears?" - Peter Griffin

Rips's post is interesting. In many ways he is right, but he is also treading dangerously in some places. We need to be very careful. The graveyard of deceased computer games is littered with titles where the developers have listened too much to players and made their lives too easy.

Also I believe we need to ask ourselves who is asking for a particular change. Small groups of players can be very vocal. A small minority can appear to have the voice of a large majority. It doesn't need many on a forum post to make it sound like a suggestion has the backing of the majority of the players. Wherein reality its a tiny number. So what should CCP be looking at to change from some of the things being banded about blog-sphere and by the Tweetfleet? Is it's CCP responsibility to come up with these, or should they rely on the players?

Jump Clones.These have been highlighted as a problem and they are. However, they mustn't be used as a way of being able to hop around the universe at will. The main problem is this sort of thing -

Log on at normal time. Do stuff in your normal area.

You need to do something 60 jumps away. You have a JC there just for this. You jump.

Next day you log in at normal time, but you are stuck away from your normal stomping grounds for 2 more hours. Nothing needs doing in your local area as you did it before you logged last night..... bugger.

As suggested by others, a skill that reduces jump clone waits would be ideal. I'm guessing here, but I would say 4 hours is a good session on Eve. Therefore if you had it so when trained to level 5 the skill dropped the wait to 20 hours, it would be ideal. Log on at 7pm, do your thing. JC at 10:55pm, do the stuff you need to do in the far reaches of space, sleep, work, eat, log back onto Eve next evening. Hey presto! You're ready to JC back home!

Auto Pilot
In hi-sec, I agree that maybe auto piloting to 0 would save a few carebears from being ganked. In low-sec however, with a few iStabs and warp-stabs you could AP through "dangerous space" without too much risk. Risk vs reward. May be there could different AP warp-ins for different areas of space.....

Warning - Your autopilot route takes you through low-sec. Due to a lower standard of navigational aids in these areas the autopilot can only warp to 10km from the gate and must travel the rest of the distance on conventional engines. This is highly-dangerous. Are you sure you want to do this?

Self Destruct.
When we downed a Nyx earlier this month we praised CCP that even though he self-destructed a killmail was generated. However, we now find that this is actually a bug (which most of us call a feature). CCP are apparently looking into this. Self destruct is needed. Sometimes you need to get somewhere and need to take the "pod express" (self destruct your pod so you wake up in your medical station). This is needed if you get lost in a wormhole and forgot to bookmark the exit hole (known as doing a Sindel) or if a player is griefing you by holding your pod and not letting you go. If CCP implement killmails for ships self-destructed under aggression, then reducing self-destruct timers is not a problem. If they do not, then SD needs to relate to the size of ship. Pods, 10 seconds. Cruisers, 20 seconds. BS two minutes, capitals 3 minutes and supers 5 minutes. Come on, when do you need to self-destruct a super normally?

Moving
Moving your base of operations is a PITA. I want to move a few jumps. I have tens of billions of assets in ships and mods. The best way currently for me is via carrier. I can take one million cubic metres of assembled ships (with cargo's full of ammo) and 10,850m3 of mods and . But for someone who has been playing for years, that's not a lot. Now here we are with the conflict. Right now, I would love to see a "Mothership" that is pretty useless for anything but moving. A massive ship hanger, a huge cargo bay. This would make moving base simpler and safer. But do we want Eve to be simple and safe? If it's my war targets moving, do I want them with a ship like this or do I want them having to make repeated jumps or better yet, conventional haulers that I can assplode? I know CCP feels it's already too easy to move. They want to see convoys of industrials protected by wings of combat ships moving through space. How awesome/terrible would that be? Awesome for the attackers, terrible for the people hauling stuff. "Wut? I thought you said jump on contact. WHAT CAMP?"

Bookmarks on Overview.
Please. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease! I want that for GTFO-ability. But wait. Do I want my enemies to have it? Do I want them to be able to bounce safe's easier? I want to be able to, but I don't want my enemies to be able to. May be a good example of something that sounds a good idea, but would make my life both easier and more difficult at the same time.

Loyalty Point Clicks
Interesting one this. Are CCP looking at risk vs reward here? The risk of repetitive strain injury (RSI) verse the reward of lots of goodies. Does the need for so much clicking and arsing about put people off buying certain things from the LP store? If so does that then limit supply therefore reward those who will make the 25,000 mouse clicks?

So there are a few things in the above list that I would want to see in Eve which will make my life easier. Hang on...... making the game easier....... I've been here before in another MMOG.

CCP are in a really difficult position. Eve is hard. We know that, we love that. If it was made easy, would you get the same rush in achieving something in-game? CCP must listen to the player base, but at the same time must consider the outcomes. We might beg them for an "improvement" to make our lives easier, more convenient, but they need to be sure they don't end up "Doing a SOE".

There is also no point pandering fully to new players and making it very easy for them, they'll only suffer worse when they try to step up. But we need new blood in the game and we need to retain new players. How on earth do you get this balance right? How do we stop the new players quiting, yet still prepare them for the long game ahead?

Convenience and something "being easy" are two different things. Some people want the same change for different reasons without thinking of the consequences.

Friday, July 27, 2012

First just want to say thanks for all the messages I got following this post about Drack looking for a new corp. Was rather surprised by the reaction and especially by the Eve mails from several of New Eden's better know corps. Many thanks of thinking of me, but I am really just looking for some plain-old stress-free fun PvP in Faction War. You don't tend to have that in those corps ranked in Battle Clinic's top 10. But seriously, thanks for the messages!

Also thanks to those giving more mysterious messages. "... interesting, somewhat crazy employment opportunity....". Return email sent and I await to hear from you!

However, please note, there is no way on earth, or any other planet you care to mention, I'll be giving any intel on -FU- or SoTF. If that is what you are after, don't bother.

So, I'm back in Black Rise. Only one epic cyno bump whilst jumping my carriers back (multiple carriers and jump clones FTW) and all unpacked back in Nisuwa. Apparently my plan to join the Federal Defence Union has failed. By the look of things you cannot hop from a Faction War player corp into a Faction War NPC corp any more. So unless I drop back to a noob corp and then join FDU and then look at joining a player corp... meh what a pain, corp hopping and downtime out of Faction War. Will just linger as I am until I've found a new corp, applied, been interrogated and accepted.

Anyway, back on topic.

So being back in Nisuwa it was time to kill some squids. I peek into Kedama and there are a few war targets about. I see an open Caldari Outpost so warp to a close celestial and get a scan. Nothing in it.... or at least nothing that I can scan. I warp to the acceleration gate and enter.

There are a few NPC rats which I kill off quickly. Still nothing on short range scan so I orbit the button and trigger the remaining rat spawns.

During this ten minutes I get a few ships on the short-range scan and burn back to the warp in, but they apparently don't want to play and do not enter the Plex.

I've finished all the rats, the Ferox being the last spawn, when I get a Kestrel on scan. I burn back to the button just in case. A Kestrel could be fit two ways. A light missile kite fit or a close-range rocket fit. If he was kite fit, he might warp in hoping to keep range and kill me from a distance. Suddenly a Rifter appears on short range. Two ships on the acceleration gate, two squids in local.

Two T1 frigates verses an Assault Frigate. I'll take that fight but I need to think here. The Rifter is likely to be AC brawler fit. As they come in I'll need to focus on the Kessy in case he's kitey. I'll leave the Rifter until I've got the Kessy down and then will switch to the Rifter.

OK, plan sorted. Void loaded. I'm ready.....

Kestrel comes in first and as I'm locking him the Rifter arrives. I go for the Kestrel and he burns.... at me! Fantastic, he's either rocket fit, or mad. Turns out he was rocket fit with an ancillary shield booster. They are both on top of me and my shields are being plinked away with salvo's of T2 rockets and autocannon rounds. Kessy is tanking with that ASB but my DPS is breaking him. He goes down.

I turn my guns on the Rifter. After a couple of rounds his shields are failing and he runs for it. This is a problem as he's AB fit and I'm MWD. He's got a scram on me so is soon making range away from me quickly. I swap to long range ammo, but small blaster long range ammo is not very long range. He's low armour but now out of range of my guns and my scram. But, it also means I'm out of range of his scram. He's 15km from me as my MWD becomes active. I overheat both my MWD and my scram, regain point, get in range, pop. Dead Rifter.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Well this is something new. After over four years of playing Eve I find myself in a situation I've never been in before. Having to find a new corp! Shadows of the Federation has been heading down the "competitive e-sports/l33t PvP" route for a while now. I just want to log in, violence important internet spaceships and log out. No drama, no fuss, no business planning, no shouting, no emo, no-one sober!

Unfortunately (for me) things have been getting more and more serious in Shadows for some time. We all take our important internet spaceships seriously, but there is a point. I mean Shadows is moving in the "right" direction as a PvP corp. Open the latest edition of EON magazine and you'll see both the alliance and Shadows in the respective top 20 rankings. Yes, SoTF have come a long way in the last 3 years!

Are the enemy here yet? Are the enemy here yet? Are the enemy here yet?

So why, as a PvP player did I want to leave a top PvP corp? Try answering this, you have two choices tonight:-

a) Sit in your carrier or dreadnought waiting in station on the hope that the enemy might deploy something you can drop and have some epic kills.

or

b) Jump in some BC's and go for a roam and kill whatever you find.

Now some will say A and others B. I'm fully in the "B" camp. Sat staring at the arse of a titan for ages or spinning a capital in station with a 50% chance nothing will happen is not my own personal play style. But you don't get epic kills with "B", you do get epic kills/fights with "A". But in the end its down to personal choice, its how YOU prefer to spend YOUR time, its.......

I know that the biggest fans of the "A" camp in Shadows will be reading this. I'm not having a go, I'm not criticising the way you play the game. It is simply that I prefer easy, stress free PvP and am much more happier out in space killing cheap stuff than waiting in station/at the POS for that epic fight that might happen with caps, supers and shiny ships. I know you're not. We all enjoy different things.

So I've dropped ("ing" technically, roles haven't gone yet and I want to get back to the Gallente warzone first) to the faction war NPC corp and doing my own thing for a while. Really need to find a new corp, but...... the problem is I've never had to look for a corp before.

I started Eve as a solo player, what Mittens calls an "Eve-Born". I was happy in the noob corp farming missions in my railgun Cormorant and aiming for that awesome ship I wanted called a Caracal. That ship really did look awesome and I'd be able to WTFPWN these rats when I flew a mighty cruiser!

Pretty sure the Caracal didn't look like this in 2008!

It was only after I was chatting to an old mate about this great game I'd found called Eve Online and he said he'd already played it that I joined a (his) player corporation, Revelation Space. That corp merged with SoTF and therefore I've never had to look for a corp as such.

I've heard there are bad ones around.... many, many bad ones apparently. As a Director in SoTF I occasionally offer my opinion on new applicants to the corp. One 'red flag' to me is someone who has 30 corps in their employment list in the last two years. I keep getting told I shouldn't judge people like that as there are so many terri-bad corps in game people do swap corps a lot before they find a good one. So how do you identify a good one before you join? I dunno?!?!

Anyway how do you find new employment in Eve, I've never had to do this in five years of playing. I suppose I could do it as I would in real-life with a Curriculum Vitae? But where do I put it? Anyone know the location of the New Eden Job Centre?

About Me.
Can fly most combat vessels in game. When soloing I love Assault Frigates although an active tanked Slepnier is fun (providing you have a scout to check for camps). Hurricanes and Flabbers go without saying! In a fleet I can bring what is needed. Prefer to use alts for logistics/triage. Will fly most things from a Falcon to provide jams up to faction battleships and dreadnoughts for deeps. I 'can' FC but pretty crap at it and personally hate it. Much prefer to be in the thick of things shooting large guns!

As for the corp I'm looking for..... looking for a not too serious corp. One that understands real life comes first and if the wife walks into the computer room in stockings and heels and purrs "Are you busy?" during a fleet, I'll be docking up (don't worry, it happens a LOT less regularly than I would like!).

One that accepts the excuse "I cannot make that fleet on Friday night, I'm out getting utterly gazebo'd". One where emo-rage is kept to a minimum and I'm not scared of making a mis-click.

Ideally I'd like a low-sec Faction War corp that is NBSI with no sec-status cap (I'm a bloody pirate and don't fancy ratting up), not bothered what side, just want to violence internet spaceships.

Mmmmmm may be I'm asking too much there. Are all those criteria actually compatible?

Alt Account 3
Was made for pilot to be protagonist in the Jita Ripper fiction series. Don't know what to do with this account currently. Started a toon on there and is doing the fitting skills whilst I decide what to do with her.

Well I wonder if the New Eden job market is any better than the current planet earth job market!

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

I've tried to write this very quick and very basic guide to FW for a friend who is thinking about joining. Thought others might find it useful.

Why?

PvP! The ability to shoot people in the face without getting GCC or those nasty security status hits in low-sec!

Sign Up!

As an individual, if you have 0.0 or better faction standing, you can join as an individual with the corrisponding NPC corp:-

Amarr - 24th Imperial Crusade.

Gallente - Federal Defense Union.

Caldari - State Protectorate.

Minmatar - Tribal Liberation Force.

If you have bad standings then you can join an existing militia player corp.

You can enlist your corp into faction war providing the corp standing is 0.0 or above to the faction.

You can enlist your alliance into faction war providing EVERY corp has 0.0 or better standing to the faction.

If your standings drop, you will be kicked from militia.

When you join one militia, you become at war with another two. Caldari and Amarr are allies as are Minmatar and Gallente. Join the Minmatar, and the Caldari militia can shoot you as well as the Amarr!

Fight for Control!

Control of a system is gained by running complexes. If your faction controls a system then you get bonus' and the ability to dock in stations there. If the system is controlled by the enemy, you cannot dock in any of the stations!

Enter a low-sec system and use your system scanner and you should be able to scan down complexes (don't worry on board scanner gets an automatic 100% hit) of varying sizes. Each size of complex restricts certain sized ships through the acceleration gate.

Minor Caldari Outpost - Known as a "minor" - T1 frigates and destroyers.

Caldari Outpost - Known as a "medium" - T2 frigates and cruisers and smaller.

Major Caldari Outpost - Known as a "major" - BC and down including T2 cruisers.

Each of these three types will spawn every 30 minutes in each system. Some times you will see an unrestricted plex. These are one of a number of plex that randomly spawn (which are in addition to the normal three types) of which there is a certain number in each constellation. Unrestricted plex do not have an acceleration gate.

Once you warp to a plex it will show up on everyone's overview, including pirates and the enemy militia.

Once inside you will find a satellite at the centre. Orbit that (click on it and show info to see how far you need to be from it) and it'll count down. If you are in an enemy controlled system, the NPC Navy will spawn and attack you. If you are in a system controlled by your faction, the rats shouldn't shoot you. Once the counter hits 0, your done! You should see how contested the system is on the bar in the top left of your screen. When it's 100% contested the iHub becomes vulnerable and you can shoot it. Get the iHub into structure and you take control of the system at next DT.

You get loyalty points for offensive plexing. You do not get loyalty points for defensive plexing. You can donate your LP's into the iHub increasing the benefits to your faction in the system and giving your militia more influence in the warzone. Click the militia button and have a look around. It's fairly obvious how tier levels work.

Plexs are good locations to get fights. Kill the rats, sit on the warp in, wait for enemy to show up.

Hi-Sec

Hi-sec is not safe in faction war. You can enter the enemy's hi-sec and an NPC Navy spawn will attack you. They do not point but they do web and in higher security systems neut heavily. The strength of the spawn relates to the security status of the system. In a 0.5 it is fairly week, in a 1.0 strong. The Navy can be tanked and kited so it is possible to enter the enemy's hi-sec and kill them when they think they are safely running missions.

You cannot cloak in enemy hi-sec (the Navy are tracking you)!

Intel

When you join faction war you will have the "Militia" chat window pop open. This will be full of spies so do not for one second think it is a secure channel. The enemy has ears and eyes and probably other body parts in there too. All the militia have invite only intel channels. You'll need to prove you are not a filthy spai before getting invited to those. Best way to prove you are not a spia? Kill the enemy.... a lot.

Fleet Up!

As a new player it can be hard to get into some of the roaming fleets. FW is full of spai's remember! Keep an eye on militia chat, there will occasionally be fleet adverts posted. The thing with faction war is it is great for solo and small gang. Get a few of your mates together and fleet up and go for a roam. Faction war is about PvP. So go find someone to violence!

That was a VERY quick guide to faction war. If it's pricked your interest have a search around and I'm sure you'll be able to find more in-depth guides. Or just join up and get violencing! That's the easiest way to learn ;)

Friday, July 20, 2012

As part of the Jita Ripper series there was a reference to Insorum in the first part. An ex-slave, who had been exposed to Insorum, was the first victim of the Ripper and I used this as the reasoning that his drugs didn't knock her out as long as he was expecting. Someone made a comment about this fact on the blog post saying it was unlikely she would be in Jita if she had been exposed to Insorum. To me it was not an issue. The idea was cooked up between me and Stan at Fanfest. I was going for a genetic disorder and medication. He suggested Insorum might have a lasting effect on the brain chemistry which I really liked the idea of. Anyway I posted a reply to the blog comment stating how it could have happened. As often happens with these things, I got thinking a bit deeper into the victims story and thought that it might make an interesting tale.....

Freedom to Die

So here I am. At the end. I cannot say that I'm not sad. To die before your 30th birthday is no achievement. However, this is it, this is how my life ends.

I was born into slavery. My parents were both Matari slaves on an Amarrian plantation world. I grew up as a slave, surrounded by slaves. We didn't mind, we didn't complain, we didn't know any different. The soothing Vitoc ensured our compliance and it made us docile and happy.

Whilst most children of my age played with toys, I played with tools. Uncle Wrench, that wasn't his real name as nobody knew his real name, taught me everything I know in mechanics. He was a kindly old Minmatar man who serviced the various generators and machinery at the plantation. Looking back, may be he has been my only ever true friend. On a daily basis I'd help him out as he tinkered with the equipment. At the age of 12 I could strip down and clean a TG4 Plasma Generator. By 14 I was helping service the drop ships that took the harvest away. At 16 we usually have to join our parents in the fields. However our masters had long known about my skills. I suppose it was amusing for them. The attractive female Minmatar mechanic. They may have laughed, but it was me they always came to when their vehicles developed a fault or some mechanical problem had occurred at the palace. So rather than working in the fields, I helped Uncle Wrench keep the plantations machinery and vehicles running.

It was a simple life. We didn't know any better. Slaves to the Vitoc, we had no choice. No, that's not correct. We didn't know we had a choice.

Then one day, they came. Our brothers and sisters, to free us.

I was trying to fix a ground-hauler that had broken down in the field with a full load. It needed to be back at the barn with its harvest before sun-down. It was a hot day, I remember that, I had my overalls unfastened and tied around my waist, my white vest top was covered in oil and sweat. Funny how certain things like that stick in your mind. I was laying under the hauler working on the engine when I heard a loud roar. At first I thought it was the hauler starting up, but then it passed. I heard a series of thumps as if something had fallen to the ground from a great height. Then the gas appeared. People panicked. We didn't know what was going on. Suddenly there were more roars of more powerful engines through the haze. Dozens of dropships descended on us. We were confused, disorientated. So use to blindly obeying orders we just followed them when they told us to come with them.

Next day when the effects of the Insorum wore off we were led into huge rooms by the hundreds. We were travelling in dreadnoughts, huge starships designed to carry hundreds of soldiers. The briefing rooms were as big as the cathedral back home. The situation was explained to us. Our history, the Amarr, the Vitoc, the Insorum, the future.

It was three days before it was my turn to be processed. By that time we had returned to a space station in the Minmatar homeworlds. Vast rooms with tables were laid out in empty hangers. Each table had an officer with datapad with a chair opposite them. In rows of hundreds, our details were entered into the system. Our names, family, age, bloodline and abilities. Apparently massive resources had been donated from somewhere called the Gallente Federation. I left the room with a bag of ill-fitting clothes, toiletries and a few hundred local credits in cash and instructions on where I could find work given my skills.

The starship docking bay was huge. Remember, I was just a country girl, a week before, I'd never seen any man-made structure larger than the palace that loomed over the plantation. You could fit the palace into this docking bay 10 times over and still have space to spare. I joined the back of the queue as instructed. It was almost all men, I had no idea where I was going. I just slowly shuffled forward with the rest.

At the end of the queue a man took my details and looked me up and down. I was getting used to that. There were not many women in these lines and those that were could hardly be described as attractive. I looked, and felt, out of place.

And that was it, having hardly spoken a word I had a job and somewhere to live. I followed the signs to docking bay 341. The next few hours were a blur. Finding the ship. Being greeted by the XO, being shown my bunk and introduced to the Chief Engineer. Apparently they had taken on 14 ex-slaves at this station. Mostly people skilled at engineering. None of us had any formal qualifications. It didn't matter we were told. We were all brothers and sisters on that ship. We were Minmatar.

Night after night I lay sleepless in my bunk staring at the ceiling. The work was interesting, the people nice enough. But part of me yearned to be back on the plantation. I knew that that life was a lie. The mutating Vitoc putting a rose-tinted glow on the fact we were nothing more than livestock to the Amarrians. But that didn't matter. I wanted to feel grass under my feet and breath clean fresh air again.

I had spent nearly two years on that ship when one day there was a sudden buzz about the crew. Jita! The centre of the cluster, THE cosmopolitan station, we were finally going there. The Captian said he had won an important courier job and he was going to arrive a couple of days earlier and give us all 48 hours shore-leave on the busiest station in the cluster as a reward for all our hard work.

I had been saving up my meager wages since I first joined the Freedom. Unless you wanted to gamble your wages away, which most of the crew did, there was very little to spend your wages on that ship. Shore leave was generally short and all of your basics supplies were covered on the ship. So I had saved. I knew what I wanted to do in Jita.

Of a night on board the ship we'd watch old Gallente holo-vids on an old TX-24 projector. One of the films, "82 Hours in Dodixie", had always been my favourite. In one scene the female lead sits at a bar in a revealing dress with every man in the bar staring at her, lusting after her, desiring her, wanting her. That is what I wanted. Class, beauty and desirability. A lifetime away from the existence I had on the 'Freedom' as a mechanic.

I was one of the first off the ship when we docked. I rented some quarters for the duration of the shore leave. The first night was bliss. A proper shower, a proper meal and a proper bed. The next day I went shopping. Three years of wages had given me a nice purse. I bought new clothes and shoes, even some fancy underwear. I bought makeup and hair and beauty products. All those products I'd seen on the holo-vid adverts before the movies, all those things that were pointless for an engineering technician on a Minmatar industrial vessel.

That night I dressed up and went to one of the upper deck bars and perched myself on a bar stool. I could feel their eyes on me, the men in the bar. I had done it, I was her in the movie.

A few men had approached during the night, bought me drinks, told me jokes, tried their best to win my favour. Towards the end of the night a smartly dressed man approached and offered me a drink. It was getting late, but I accepted. Tomlin was his name, he managed a number of ship hangers on station. Not the capsuleer ones though, just the normal starships like the one I crewed upon. When I told him what I did he laughed and said he didn't believe me. When he realised I was telling the truth he was shocked. He said that was no life for a beautiful woman. He offered me a job. A desk job, reviewing the maintenance reports for the various hangers and ensuring the maintenance teams were doing what they were supposed to. The wage was much, much better, and best of all I'd be living on a station with my own quarters. The price I would have to pay for this job offer was very clear, even if it was unspoken. I considered it a fair trade. That night I stayed at his quarters, and in the morning he gave me a shower, breakfast and an employment contract. After spending a quarter of a century giving my mind, body and soul to the Amarrians for free, giving my body to a Caldari man for one night in return for a way off that rust-bucket industrial was easy.

Over the next year I worked hard, climbing the corporate ladder. I'd like to say I won promotions based on my ability, but to be fair I used my looks and my body to my advantage. Yes, I slept with various managers. It didn't matter to me. I did what I needed to do to succeed. First was Tomlin's boss. He was easy. A sleazy Gallente man who made it clear he desired me on the first day. Next was the head of HR. He was a bit more difficult being a family man. But in the end I had both him and my desired transfer to the finance team. Unfortunately on my first day with them, my next target, the head of finance, was transferred and replaced by a woman. She was also Minmatar and had a reputation as a hard-nosed-ball-buster. I thought I was in trouble, my elevated position in the company at that time was certainly not based on my ability. However, I fell lucky in the end. Within a week I was in her bed. She liked it rough, she liked to be in control. After a few weeks of that, I was bruised, sore, but most importantly, promoted again.

Eventually I was made the Executive PA at the company and was sleeping with the owner. Well 'sleeping' is the wrong word, he could never spend the night as he had to get back to his wife and family. I didn't care. I had a great job, classy quarters, money and a great life. I had even started to buy some Minmatar antiques to furnish my living space. I thought filling my quarters with Matari tribal art and ancient weapons might help me connect with my ancestry, but it didn't.

Whilst my life was more than comfortable I wanted more. I knew I could seduce any man that I wanted. But in this universe it's not men that hold the power and the wealth, it's the capsuleers.

So I started hanging around the top end bars. Looking for a capsuleer. My ticket to the big time. Hooking one of them would make my current lifestyle seem more like my old life back on the plantation. I didn't care what he looked like, I wasn't looking for a 'good sense of humour' or 'great with kids'. I just wanted any capsuleer with his money and power. Eventually I found one, and I thought I'd hit the jackpot. But I was played, he wasn't a real capsuleer. He was a fake, a conman, a thief and very soon to be, a murderer.

So here I am. After rising up from nothing and making something of my life, I am now fallen. I am naked, laying on the cold metal floor, with a knife sticking out of my stomach. My 'winning ticket' is busy looting my room of anything valuable, ignoring my pitiful pleas for help as I slowly bleed.

I know that I'm dying, it won't be long now, but at least for one year, I got to live.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Faction war is not giving us the fights we want currently in our TZ. The squids are over-run by plexers flying speed-tanking ships with no guns. Decent fleet fights are few and far between and the ones we get are hardly epic battles. They out-number us by over 2000 pilots, but there are no massive fleets hunting us down. We need an opponent who can bring numbers.

There has been a few suggestions on how to stop LP farmers speed-tanking in week old toons with T1 frigates. But I've had another idea. When you kill an NPC rat in a plex it drops some dog tags. These are required to be cashed in alongside LP's for certain (but not all) rewards. These can easily be bought off the market if you are speed-tanking plexs. So what if players dropped dog tags? What if everyone in the militia's automatically dropped a special dog tag when their ship was assploded? The dog tags could also be graded according to the ship type. Ganked a T1 frigate, copper capsuleer dog tags for you! Killed a battleship, there are platinum ones in that wreck.

Then make each of the LP rewards in the store require one capsuleer dog tag of a certain type. Suddenly you cannot cash in your farmed LP's unless you do some PvP, or buy them from someone who does do PvP. Either way the result is the same. More people looking for PvP in militia rather than farming LP's.

Anyway, I am sure the CSM and CCP are looking at the farming issues. But for now, faction war is too much about farming and not enough about violencing internet spaceships for us.

So only one thing for it. ROADTRIP!

At the weekend, we loaded up our carriers and headed off on a 0.0 holiday looking for fights. What a great great sight it was to see the -FU- cap fleet in all its glory. During the move op I had a cyno alt in the chain and had just lit it when someone from the station undocked. He immediately docked back-up and then a Vigilant and a Megathron Navy Issue undocked. Timing couldn't have been better as they undocked, a dozen carriers jumped in and the station was awash with jump effects. They docked up quickly and we didn't see them again for the rest of the hour I was on.

Moving is a pain. Select the right ships our FC's have asked for plus some solo boats. Fill their cargo bays with ammo, remove anything that is not ammo or script from their cargo bays, stick them in the carrier, fill the carriers with fuel, spare mods and the like. Undock, jump, dock, undock, jump, dock, undock, try to jump, swear, dock, put more fuel in fuel bay, undock, jump this time, dock. Unload ships, modules and other stuff from the carrier. Repeat, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat...... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Anyway, we're about sorted now and ready to play with some 0.0 residents.

We got a nice welcome in our new home, "Don't unbother to unpack" was posted in local along with other 'friendly' comments. You know guys, you REALLY should compare killboards before engaging mouth. It's amazing what 0.0 dwellers think about faction war alliances and corps. They mostly think we have stabilisers (and I'm not talking warp or inertial) fitted to our ships. Some of the comments in local as we were moving showed this is still very much the case. Whilst there are terribad faction war alliances, corps and players, many are much better than your average 0.0 equivalent.

Oh, and another thing. Don't lose a Hyperion on the first night either. Makes the smack talk look, well, like smack!

It's been a while since my last 0.0 trip and since then I've learnt a few new things. One if these is that I can now fly both interdictors and heavy interdictors. Looking forward to trying a bit of bubbling in fleet situations. I have a Devoter and a couple of Sabres in our roadtrip home right now.

So far we've had a few fights, but we're not fully deployed yet. Hopefully by the weekend we'll be sorted and ready to deploy our full force. However, even when not 100% deployed, we got some intel on one of the local alliances shooting a SBU not far from us last night.......

I'm sat in a shiny new Battleship with freaking laser beams. We have eye's on the enemy fleet. They have caps support close (we spotted 3 carriers a couple of jumps away undocking from a station), but we also have caps. They have a few BS, we have more. They have Drakes, we wouldn't.

Will there be escalation? Can we escalate more than they? Who knows. Our cloaky scout is watching them.

JUMP!

Bubble up.

Wipe them out..... all of them..... with layzoooooors!

The battle was short. Their kitchen-sink fleet melted under our fire and they didn't drop any caps.

Finally we got some new intel. 10 minutes later we're jumping dreadnoughts and docking up at a distant station. Then it was a waiting game.... a long wait.......

And more waiting........ then at 4:20am (I'm very "tired and emotional" by then) the Nyx pilot jumps us in a "SUPWAYZ!" fashion. The wait was worth it! One of our ships lights a cyno and the target Nyx pilot gets his own surprise....

At first I thought it was the worst supercarrier fit ever, but I am informed that self-destruct killmails only show what dropped and not what was fitted.

Anyway, I then I quickly have to jump back, warp to station and VERY carefully slide into bed next to the wife trying not to wake her and get asked why I'm coming to bed at 5am when we're suppose to be getting up early to go to the capital for some shopping in a few hours.

A Year of Blogging

Exactly one year ago I made my first post here! I had been doing blog style write-ups and other posts on our corp forum for a while and decided to take the next step. I was chatting to a couple of friends and put the suggestion to them and they said I should go for it.

Next job was chosing a name for the blog I came up with a few ideas:-

I'm NOT Primary!
Please Shoot the Other Guy!
Why Does the Hotdrop Always Land on MY Head?
Drunk In Charge of a Spaceship.
Oh Bugger I Forgot Insurance.
My CEO Wears a Maids Outfit
Spaceships in the Desert
Spaceships, Sand and Cider
My Cane is Crewed by Camels
My Spaceship is Fueled by Cider

And "Spaceships, Sand and Cider" was suggested to be reworded into the title of this blog! I'm happy with the title but I still have a soft spot for "My Cane is Crewed by Camels" as we have a LOT of camels out here (not fun when they wander along high-speed rural roads!).

So, in the last year my Eve blog stats look some thing like...

86,712 page hits.
Yes, I know its nothing compared to the big blogs who probably get that in a few days. It started slowly. In my first two weeks I got a few hundred hits. Slowly it started climbing until by the end of 2011 I was averaging 1500-2000 hits a month and it had levelled off. Then in January Rixx Javix added me to the Eve Blog Pack (now handed over to Eve Bloggers) and visits jumped. Then in March it went silly. First the Corp had an event like that suggested in CCP's "The Butterfly Effect" video and made the Eve headlines. Then there was Fanfest which I attended and blogged about. April saw contnued heavy traffic on the back of these events and in May had another couple of posts that were very popular and linked on popular sites. Now a year on and I get the same number of hits I got in my first two weeks in less than a day and a half.

154 155 Posts
In terms of posts, the most popular by far is PL : WTB New Titan. This was the write up from when SoTF and Wolfsbrigade dropped a PL titan in Amamake and ganked it. Next up is Can I Haz Eve Stuffz. This was part of an effort to get Razer to make an Eve Online keyboard like their SWTOR special edition they released. Third place was "I'm Sorry, There is No Excuse" which was just an old joke I slightly reworded to fit into Eve.

All three of these top posts are the top visited due to external links. The PL Titan one was featured on the Eve-O Facebook feed with the description "We like stories like these" as well as on EveNews24 and from the traffic a number of forums. The Eve keyboard one was another Eve-O Facebook link. The terrible joke was linked by someone on Redit and got a lot of hits from there.

Sources -
Excluding Google, most of my traffic has come from Facebook (when CCP have linked my blog), Eveogander (previous home of the Eve Blog Pack) and Eve Bloggers (before and after hosting the pack). Google is another big source and my favorite keyword search ever - "Minmatar tits". Others include Reddit, EveNews24 (mostly due to PL Titan gank) and The Altruist.

Demogrpahics
Most of my visitors come from the States (34k) with UK next (15k) and then Germany, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Sweden, Fracnce, Norway and Denmark.

Browser
Most (33%%) are browsing with Firefox, Chrome is next (31%) with IE still being used by 15% of people! 75% of people visiting are using Windows, 9% Macs and 6% Android with iPhone and iPads at 4% and 1% respectively.

So there you go. Just like to say thanks for reading and here's to another year in the sandbox!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Yesterday it was my main toon's 3-year anniversary with Shadows of the Federation. Yes, he's been with the same PvP corporation since 11th July 2009! So even though I really dislike FC'ing I thought I'd FC a quick roam to mark the occasion. I am sure many corps and alliances are the same. You have a couple of great FC's who everyone looks to, to do all the fleets which is not right. So even if I need an excuse to step up and do my bit, I'll still do it even though I don't like it. Only problem is when I do that is when, like last night, the two awesomesauce FC's of WTFPWNAGE are actually in your fleet and you are wondering what they are thinking about your fleet command abilities....

Easiest way way to counter that? Plenty of Stolichnaya and 7up over ice after a few pints. Ahhhhhh! Right, back on topic, Drack's fail fleet of doom! I've got my A3 map of the local area printed with a nice route drawn on it, I have drink, I'm ready to rock, and indeed, roll!

Actually, before I get onto the roam I'd just like to wish one of our proper FC's (who actually knows what they are doing) a happy birthday. Obviously I don't want to be shouting his name out and getting him primaried any more than he is already is in fleet fights, but happy birthday Mr C. As he does so much for the corp, we decided to buy him a present. We even gift wrapped it and everything!

Anyway, finally onto last night and my planned roam!

I get the fleet started and soon enough I have a dozen pilots in fleet which climbs to 15. That'll do nicely! Got people into Arty Hurricanes with a couple of logi, a fleet booster and a Lach for looooong points plus a fast frigate scout. Then suddenly....... intel!

Enemy triaged Archon on OMS gate in Heyd with support fleet including BS and faction cruiser, only a couple of jumps away from us!

ZOMG!

Last thing I wanted to do was screw this up. I was in two minds if to try this myself, but, it was a potential Archon kill so I handed the fleet over to one of our FC's of uber-awesomesauce. We were ready to go in 90 seconds but the enemy fleet docked up as the Archon dropped out of Triage! Bah!

We gave them five minutes and sure enough, they undocked and the Archon jumps out. Now you might think we missed the party, but if the carrier is in the same system, then it cannot hotdrop, it can just warp which it does sooooooooooo slooooooooooooowly. So we waited. Sure enough they dropped the Archon again and we then we jump in to spoil their party. Blap!

We head back to home base and reshiped so I can take the fleet out for the planned roam. Well, after that engagement, even if I welp the entire fleet, doesn't matter, had cap kill!

So we head out and it's quiet, far too quiet. We're finding the odd one or two targets but they are busy plexing not fighting. Our scout finds a Harbinger on an acceleration gate that he cannot use (medium FW plex) so goes for point. Unfortunately the Harb is set up for killing frigates (probably why he is sat on a medium plex acceleration gate) and even at 5000m/sec our scout is taken down and we land 45km off as the target warps away. Slippery bugger!

From then on I "Leeroy scout" by jumping first and having a poke around. In Ouellete I have a Drake and a Talos on scan and they are talking in local about belts. So I warp to top belt, nothing. Warp to bottom belt, nothing. Warp to middle belt, wrecks. Bugger! Going to have to D-Scan them. So off I go D-Scanning them down when a Drake suddenly lands 100km off. I burn for him... he burns for me...

"LiCuid Ice > hey look a gay little hutticane" appears in local as we both point each other and open fire. I'm waiting for the Talos to come in but he doesn't appear before my shields are starting to get low. So I get the fleet to jump in and warp to me. The Drake tries to run, but a little overheat of the MWD means I re-establish point and he goes down.

I cannot help but copy and paste the earlier comment from local and make a small addition - "hey look a gay little hutticane <- With mates"

As soon as my agro drops I jump into the next system an it's rather Squidy! Finally, multiple targets, and lots on scan so they are in space! They start landing on gate and jump through not wanting to engage this lonely Hurricane 12km off gate. Of course they jump into a fleet of Hurricanes on the other side and die. Those who landed late just bounce from the gate as they are obviously listening to the screams of their dying fleet mates on the other side! I try to lock them but without a SeBo I cannot lock them in time before they warp off. So no kills for me but a few for the fleet!

We head on and pass through the earlier Archon owners home system. I order the fleet "Smack Free". It's a bit like "Weapons Free" but with 35% more trollolololololol. Our piss-taking complete we head home as it's bloody late and I have work in the morning.

So a "successful" fleet. 1 loss (the poor scout) a few kills under my command and an Archon plus Damnation, three Megathrons, a Muninn, three Drakes, a Cane, a Vigilant and an Incursus under a proper FC's command but.......

...... it was still MY fleet! It had Drackarn's Fleet as the fleet name and everything! ;)

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

FC - That's no problem. We're only gate camping in BC's and gate guns switch targets so it'll be a nice and easy introduction for you to flying Logi the first time Drack. In fact stick a gun on there so you can wh0r3 onto killmails too.

20 Minutes Later......

FC - OK Primary is Y in the Hurricane, secondary is X in the Hurricane, tertiary is Z in the Harbinger. Someone with range see if you can alpha that Falcon. Can we get jams on those two Guardians?

Me - Erm........ ooooo...... ahhhhh........ Oh Fu.......

*Low shield alarm goes off

Last night there wasn't much going on so one of our FC's decides to go camp a squid high-sec gate for a while. We're not getting any X's for logistics so I volunteer. I've never flown logistics before (in a combat situation, just for PoCo/PoS repping), the same as I have never played a priest class in other MMORPG's. Why? I don't want people to die if I Derp. In a DPS boat if I Derp, what's the worse that could happen? I lose my own ship and associated ISK which I can easily replace. If I Derp in a logisitics role then other people are going to lose ships and ISK and it'll be my fault and I'm not comfortable with that. OK, OK, yes if I die in a DPS boat, the fleet has less DPS and therefore might die and not hold the field etc etc, I was thinking more direct-causation than that.

Anyway, as nobody else is volunteering, I thought I might as well have a go. Plus, its only a gate camp. Ganking the odd ship and handling the gate guns firing on tanked BC's, well even I should be able to do that! Of course that is providing we don't meet another gang en route to the target gate. But what's the chance of that happening in the few jumps we're going to do?

Typical!

So here I am, first time in a logistics and really struggling in the middle of a fleet fight. We've got a bunch of canes, 2 logi and a Falcon. They have a bunch of canes, 2 logi and a Falcon. Suddenly I realise what multi-tasking is. Some how our damn fleet has grown to 15, I'm repping people as required and switching and spreading my three reppers around. I'm also trying to pilot the ship and trying to stay alive. All of these things together is not easy. After a minute of fighting a Hurricane has me webbed, scrammed and neuted. I was so busy switching reps and watching the "watch list" that I failed to notice him sneaking up on me until I got the scram notice. I'm burning back to gate, I say "burning" 130m/sec when 30km off gate cannot really be described as burning, and I'm having to be careful with the capacitor management due to the neuting. Thankfully I'm getting reps and I'm still able to rep others even whilst neuted (may be NOS'd and not neuted?). I am primaried by the enemy fleet and down to 20% armour when our Falcon gets a jam on the Hurricane that is sat on top of me. The others are AC fit and at range so their DPS is minimal to me. Two cycles of MWD put me back on gate and in full shield and cap back to a healthy state. Thanks Mr Falcon!

At this point we've popped the enemy Falcon and started to break their tanks. They de-agress and jump through the gate with one of their cane's just entering structure as his agression drops and he jumps though the stargate.

After that, the rest of the night was simple. Gate guns vs BC's were no match for my newly acquired "l33t logistics skillz of awesauceness" ;) However, during that fleet fight, I was certainly a bit more stressed!

So props to all the logistics pilots out their in New Eden. That is NOT and easy job, but it can be quite the ride!

P.S. And I never even thought about firing that small gun that was fitted, I was too busy doing logi things to get on the kill mails!

Sunday, July 8, 2012

"EVE Online sits on the frontier of social gaming, providing an entertainment environment like no other. The vibrant society of interacting and conflicting communities, both within the EVE client and without, is the driving force behind EVE's success. However, the anonymity of internet culture combined with a competitive gaming environment encourages in-game behaviour to spread beyond the confines of the sandbox. Where is the line?"

Eve Online is fairly unique in the online gaming world. Whilst scams, cons and the like are banned and actively prevented in many MMOG's, they are not in Eve Online. CCP Games like their "It is a sandbox so HTFU attitude" and present New Eden as a cold, dark and rather nasty game world. But where is this line Stan speaks of? First off lets look at some of the people who inhabit our game world.

Last night I went to Jita and local chat was scrolling fast. Unbelievable good offers are flying for everything from minerals at a fraction of the market price to pilots licence extensions for only 385m rather than the 480m on the market. However, a quick glance at these "fantastic offers" soon show otherwise. The 350,000 units of mineral is actually 35,000. The PLEX for 385m actually is an exchange contract for one PLEX their side and 385m ISK PLUS one PLEX from you. It would appear that "scammers gonna to scam".

Now whilst I would never scam personally, I have corpies who do it to fund their PvP. I'm not saying it should be banned nor that I am morally against it, far from it, but I would never do it myself. But there are few games that have such blatent rip-off merchants acting with impunity. So scamming an anonymous individual is one thing. But what about the next level? Corp thefts?

As a Director of my corp I have access to the wallet and the hangers. I've just done a little look around, and there are multiple billions of ISK in the wallet. The corporate hangers are full of juicy ships, modules and ammo. With a few clicks and a few drags I think I could have 20 times my current ISK within a minute. That's a lot of cash for the taking.

But would I ever think of doing that? Never. That would be a crappy thing to do to mates who I've violenced internet spaceships with (and in some cases got exceedingly drunk with out on the town) for several years. But it happens all the time. I was in UPCHAT (the public channel for the booster producers Uppers n Downers) a few months ago and there was a random guy in there who was a bit fed up. Apparently his CEO had just raided the corp and took ISK and assets of around 180bn ISK. The only thing he didn't take was a Drake BPO that was being used at the time, other than that he striped the corp bare. A number of our own corp members come from a now closed corp whose CEO had a big plan. They needed ISK so they collectively grinded the billions and billions for it. Apparently it was a TITANic amount of ISK required, and, allegedly in the end, the CEO made off with most of it.

These are not isolated incidents. We hear about these all the time within Eve. Why? Because they are, in some way encouraged, and there is rarely any consequence. If there was too much heat, transfer the goods to an alt and delete the "naughty" character. The ultimate clean get away! But even with this, why do normal people behave this way? Would they do this in real life?

Does good old Gabe's Greater Internet Dickwad Theory explain it?

You could also think of the Internet as "The Mask" from the Jim Carrey movie of that name...

The internet doesn't make you something different, it strips off the mask you hide behind in everyday life and shows the true you, probably more than most people would like to admit.

"Oh I'm not really an asshat in real life, I just play an asshat in-game". Really? Are you REALLY sure about that?

So we attract, nurture and encourage asshattery. Should we be shocked that there is a small minority of players who take things further than just in-game? Is anyone really surprised when we hear of DDOS attacks on voice comms/forums/websites, OOG personal attacks/insults in social media like Facebook and, generally, the sand spilling over the sandbox and getting everywhere?

The banter question asked "Where is the line?".

To be honest. I think the line that the majority of people would draw in the sand has been obliterated by the number of people crossing it. Surely, even if you are not a roleplayer, you should make the distinction between in-game and out-of-game?

My line in the sand is there - at the IG/OOG interface. Others might want to pull it back to some form of Blizzard-esq "Why cannot we all play nicely?". Others will move it the other way so its out of the sand all the way past the beach and under a bush into some tropical tundra so far in the distance we cannot even see the line anymore.

About Me

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